The world witnessed the masterpiece “Senna” by Asif Kapadia. The movie revolved around the life of Ayrton Senna and his career in Formula 1. The director, Asif, did a great job at portraying every single high and low in the driver’s life. From the beginning of his career to his rivalry with Alain Prost, Kapadia did the unimaginable by shrinking down his life in just 100 minutes of footage. However, declined to make one on Michael Schumacher.
One of the many reasons the movie went viral was because there were no interviews like most documentaries add to their movies. One of the many movies like such was the Schumacher documentary by Netflix. The movie had time jumps quite often and the documentary included footage of his interviews. But “Senna” is a one-of-a-kind movie. People who are watching it for the first time and people who have replayed it every week and month find their way back to the movie.
NO FEAR. NO LIMITS. NO EQUAL. @SENNAmovie is available to watch on SkyDocumentariesHD. It’s a beautiful tribute to Ayrton Senna, to this incredible soul, a maverick who was in a league of his own. @asifkapadia@SkySportsF1
#Senna #HappyBirthdayAyrton pic.twitter.com/pfkndQGcvY— Ayrton Senna Tribute (@F1_AyrtonSenna) March 20, 2021
Arguably so, Asif spent six years making this movie into the perfection that it is. The movie walks through Aryton Senna’s career in a systematic timeline. What makes him greater is his fights with his equal competition in the same car and yet finding his way to the top. And the documentary did its job of portraying it. By just the looks of it, one can point out the minute details the director has paid attention to.
Asif Kapadia declines an offer to make the Michael Schumacher documentary
Nonetheless, when Asif was asked to make a movie about Schumacher’s life, he declined. Michael Schumacher’s Ferrari boss, Jean Todt, and Michelle Yeoh had both nudged the director towards making the movie. However, his beliefs about the sport clashed with his professional business. He said that he did not believe in a sport where a champion is teamed with a less experienced driver to advantage the star driver. Therefore, he declined to make a movie on Schumacher.
When talking to Daily Star Sport, he said, “I kind of had a little nudge from Jean Todd’s partner Michelle Yeoh. I’d done a film with her before. I did get a little message saying ‘Would you be interested?’ I should be honest, I wasn’t. And I have to be honest.”
“I wasn’t a huge fan (of Schumacher), I’ll be honest.”
Asif Kapadia has been behind the making of some legendary documentaries like Amy. Amy was a documentary on Amy Winehouse’s life and received an Oscar award. But when it came to Schumacher, he declined to make the movie which in turn was made by Netflix. However, his success with Senna took off, while Schumacher fans got a documentary of the ill-fated driver including rare interviews with his wife.